Disturbed
by PanamaLover
Summary: There is a killer on the loose. Holly and Gail meet. For the first time. Slightly AU. Not completely (but enough so there would be no kids and no adoptions). Rated M, cause you never know where it might end up going.
1. One: Gastronomie

I own nothing.

* * *

"No way in hell, Stewart."

A loud voice boomed in the eternally too low-lit room, filled with bone- chilling coldness and infused delicately with the presence of death. Every single surface, every single object, even the shadows were drenched in _that_ smell. It was bleach predominantly, but for most people it smelled like _death_. An old professor had once told Holly that, after working as a forensic pathologist for long enough, she would too be permeated by death. And she would be forced to carry death around with her for the rest of her life (but didn't everybody?). In the very essence of her, death would take up a permanent residence. The professor had said it with such deep sadness, looking at Holly, refusing to believe that she had decided on a forensic pathology residency. "Such a bright, lively girl", they all said. They all though they could see her through and through. They all though death would become a part of her and ruin her, break her brightness and her liveliness. It has been years and so far, she only felt like she carried around the smell of formaldehyde. Of course, all of her friends said, that she smelled like death itself. So. Half truths.

"Yes, Stephen", Holly smirked at the piercing eyes of a gaunt man who sat in front of her, " we both know it is my turn. You went out to the field last time and it was Andrew before that. I have been stuck in here doing your shit lab work forever. It is my turn to have some fun."

She saw how his long thin fingers flexed and relaxed. But Holly knew. This was for show. The scary strange looking man, with the voice meant to address nations and the deep set black eyes that could (and did) intimidate interns and other pathologists enough to haunt their nightmares on the worst of nights, did not chose a vocation all those years ago which would have allowed to use his physical presence to its full potential. So, he needed to put up a show, even if only for the two of them. Sometimes she let him, sometimes she just smiled and took on the role of a whole audience for his spectacle. Because she knew, he had already worked there long enough to carry death around too. And also, he did let her get away with more bullshit than most of her colleagues.

"Dr. Stewart, I believe that I still am your superior. If I decide to take this call, I will."

There. She could already see the glint in his eye. That mischievous little glint, that only years of knowing him allowed her to recognize. She'd already won. So she put on her jacket, grabbed her forensics kit and called over her shoulder, "oh god, such a powerful man, such superiority. If only I weren't gay, Stephen, if only!"

* * *

The forrest felt damp and heavy. Something bad was going to happen. Or had happened. Holly didn't care. In her line of work, the worse the feeling she had, the worse the situation was, the more interesting her job got. Nevertheless, there was something unsettling about this. An overpowering feeling of doom was in the air and Holly was irrationally annoyed. She felt like she was actually breathing that heaviness, that dampness of the forest into her lungs and out. Small particles of the strange presence were staying behind, in her alveoli. Was that it? Was she going to be carrying around in her lungs all of the crime scenes, and not death itself, as the old professor had said.

"God...", Holly muttered. She was going to start talking about stuff like "auras" and "energy fields" if she carried on like that. It was autumn, it had been raining, the forest was dense. That's all. And she had been reading way too many fantasy books.

Holly could already see the buzz. That unique buzz that nothing else but a crime scene had, except maybe for a car accident. People were drawn to it. Like moths to a flame. The bright police tape seemed out of place here. Too colorful, too jarring in the heavy stillness of the forest. Sometimes, in these rare occasions when they discovered bodies in these kinds of places, Holly had the terrible thought of simply leaving them there. Why not? Why commit this final offense to the body by putting in under these gigantic lights, pointing directly at them, why make a show out of them and then move them to a lab to be picked apart for that little bit more of fun they could provide. The body would definitely be more at ease staying in the hands of mother nature. From dust to dust, organic matter is organic matter after all.

"The killer...it's to find the killer", she muttered under her breath. A very very bad thing to forget, if you are a forensic pathologist. Holly had these thoughts. Sometimes. She knew, though, she would get set up by one of her eager matchmaking friends, get laid and the pseudo-philosophy would be gone. PUFF, just like that. It just has been a while, and like always, the pent up "energy" manifested in somewhat dark musings.

"Hey. HEY! Lunchbox! What the HELL!?"

Holly turn around, pointing at herself, "me?"

"No, the fucking Yeti behind you. Yes, you. You can't be here. It'a crime scene, as you might have noticed", the blond-leather-jacketed maniac was closing in on Holly with hands moving around aggressively, punctuating every word, "how did you get through the officers at the police line?"

Holly stood there with her forensics kit raised by an outstretched arm, not at all surprised, having learned how to deal with the short-tempered butt-headed police people a long time ago.

"Well, they saw the forensics kit, they put two and two together," Holly tried to reign in the inner bitch, but the blond's jaw was set too hard for her to stop herself from adding, "it's four, in case you're still wondering. I'm the forensic pathologist, I'm actually supposed to be here. Evidence and _stuff_".

It has been a while since Holly had been scrutinized so thoroughly and so blatantly. She could feel the penetrating blue stare moving from the tips of her toes to the top of her head, stopping here and there, raising an ironic, nicely shaped right eyebrow after inspecting her forensics kit.

"Nerd squad", was the final diagnosis, made by Doctor Blond, " you should have said so earlier. We're been waiting for you. I'm detective Peck. Gail Peck. Let's move and get the evidence and _stuff ._ No need to stand around all day, my shoes are getting ruined."

Holly looked down. Well, she had good taste in shoes, even if she was a bitch. Nobody is perfect, after all.

"Did the people, who found the body, touch anything in the crime scene? Check for pulse or something like that? Because in such environmental conditions as these, even the smallest contact of an oily substance with the victims skin can.."

"What? what...? Stop. Just stop. Do I need to know this? Why are you telling me this?", the detective's jaw was still set hard, but Holly could swear, she saw a glint, "Stephen-like" glint in her eye. Also there was something utterly charming in the way that she was holding her arms out like a cartoon character trying to conway confusion in a way that even the smallest of children would understand. Holly wondered if Detective Peck was even aware of this action, this silly subconscious childlike action. Either way, Holly was pretty sure, she'd already won this one too.

"Medical jurisprudence. I have a feeling yours needs brushing up," Holly saw how that sneaky eyebrow arched up again, "where is the body?".

"There is no body."

Holly felt like she was deflated by these four little words. Did she actually waste her turn at a field trip for a scene with no actual body? Stephen was not going to let her forget about this one. Ohhh, no. He would have way too much fun. Unfair, completely and totally unfair. No body. That's what that weird feeling in the forest was. It was the feeling of the bodiless crime scene, doomed to ruin any pathologists day. But Holly was a glass half full kind of a gal, so she had to try.

"As in, there is no spoon kind of a way, or...?"

One corner of the lips went up. So the pale delightful little creature actually had a decent sense of humor. Or taste in movies, at least.

"No. In a "there is no body" kind of a way...Or...Well...Define the word "body"? "

Holly looked at the detective. Ok, so the glass was half full after all. That semi confused look on the blonds face and that tilt of the head- something was up. Something strange and freaky was up, and Holly could already feel the butterflies in her stomach. She was never going to tell anyone about this, of course, but an exciting case evoked almost the same response in her stomach as a first date did. Morbid? Yes. Terrifying? Yes. True? Very much so. Would Freud have a field day with her? Probably...

"I think when I said "brushing up", I might have been underestimating your lack of knowledge a bit," Holly smiled," what do you mean, define the word body? What the hell do we have?"

Detective Peck was already moving towards a patch of land in a ditch surrounded by portable glaring lights. The first thing that Holly noticed, following behind her, was that there was no smell. No musky sweet smell of fresh blood, no overpowering smell of rotting flesh. There was only the fresh smell of forest after rain. Another thing Holly noticed was the jeans that the detective was wearing. Not only did she have good taste in shoes, she could also pick a pair of jeans perfectly, because the ones that she was wearing fit her nice shapely ass like a...

"TA-DAH!"

Holly's head snapped up at the actual crime scene and it all suddenly made sense.

Bones. She could see the bones. A full-on skeleton, it seemed, of a whole human body. Not bad, not bad at all.

"Who found it?", Holly turned to the detective again.

"A couple of joggers RAN into it on their nightly run".

"Oh wow. A detective and a comic?"

"Just a couple among the myriad of talents that I have."

Holly could hear the smirk, but she no longer registered the actual facial expression of the detective, "oh, I'm sure", Holly murmured. She already had directed her full attention to the remains. The little gruesome nerdy girl inside her was giddy and wanted to clap her hands while giggling. Admittedly, old post-decay bones were not as fun as actual flesh, blood and wounds, but bones were good. Bones were better than nothing. There was a shit-load of tests that she could do on those bones. Ohhh, her mind was already spinning with the possibility...She really needed to get out to the field more. Or just get out more, period.

"They didn't touch anything. The joggers. And the officers, who responded first, followed standard protocol. There should be no contamination", detective Peck threw over her shoulder while walking away.

* * *

Human bones are strong. They are surprisingly strong. That is, while the person is still alive. It's all due to the wonderful structure of the bone, both on a microscopic and on a chemical level. There is a perfect balance between the solid components- the minerals, and the flexible components- the collagen. Now, when a person dies and the cell metabolism stops in all of the tissues, collagen production in the bone ceases as well. Body also starts to lose moisture. Hence, the flexibility is gone. The older the bone, the longer the body has been decaying, the more brittle the bones are.

"This makes no sense", Holly muttered under her breath.

The bones were fresh. They were totally completely fresh. As in "bought from a farmer, fresh produce, straight from a tree" kind of fresh. There were no signs of decomposition, there was no damage to the structure of the bone, but there was no trace of soft tissues either.

"This is mental", she said louder while trying to line out the bones in a shape of a human on the autopsy table.

"Sorry, mam? What is mental?", asked the police officer, who was left at the lab to report on any evidence. Was it Diaz? Yes, Diaz, The Puppy Face.

"Oh, nothing, don't mind me. Just trying to make sense of this", Holly answered. She couldn't really do all the work now. She needed to wait for the forensic anthropologist. The guy who was really responsible for most of the stuff in these kind of cases. Well, technically responsible. But since he was a 71 year old man, it usually meant that Holly did all of the actual work. She didn't mind, though. She found it interesting enough and had put in more hours in various seminars and conferences concerning advanced stages of decomposition than actually required to do all of this stuff properly. But, regardless, the old guy was still necessary from a legal point of view. She still needed his stamp of approval, literally, he needed to sigh on all of the forms and papers. So, for now, she was merely putting together the puzzle of this skeleton. The freshness, though. It was bugging her. There was no way that these bones where old. But where was the flesh then? It must have been removed. How?

* * *

An hour later, Holly was starting to get seriously freaked out. Looking at the microscope, she simply could not seem to put two and two together. She looked at the piece of paper she just had remover from one of the analyzers and looked back at the microscope again. Turning around on her chair she went back to the bones. Having gotten the approval from the old guy, along with some advice, Holy was well underway with a closer examination of the evidence when she heard a distinct sharp voice behind her back.

"Go back to the station, Chris. I've got this."

"But, Gail. You're. I mean. You're the detective, you're not supposed to..", Puppy Face tried to form some sort of a sentence.

"I'm not supposed to what? First of all, I do what I want to do. Second of all, there is nothing I can do now. We have nothing. So yeah, you go to the station, fill out the paperwork, and I will hang out here, if the doctor doesn't mind?", the last part was added as an afterthought, an afterthought covered in sugar and pink ribbons.

"As long as the detective can refrain from touching anything and stay silent, it's fine", Holly answered without lifting her eyes up. She her the snort though. Good thing she had her back at detective Peck, because there was no way to stop the smile that spread across her face. Oh, it was going to be an interesting day. Messed up evidence and messed up company. As Diaz closed the door with a silent "goodbye", Holly heard some rustling coming from behind her.

"I though I asked not to touch anything?"

"What? Your nerd-dar going off, or something?"

"No, but I have ears", Holly answered and turned back, just to see the detective flicking through a forensics' journal with disinterest.

"Medical jurisprudence. I'm just trying to work on mine", Peck smiled at her sweetly, after a moment adding, "seriously, though. We have nothing. The bones are the only thing. Nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything. They just appeared out of nowhere, and there is nothing that could be considered as evidence in that area either."

"No pressure or anything", said Holly," you said it was a nightly run?"

"What?"

"The joggers, they run every night? The same route? But they didn't notice the bones before?".

"No. They didn't. I just thought it might have been the rain. You know, it has been raining pretty heavily lately, maybe it washed of the dirt or something like that", Peck tried to explain, though it was obvious that she herself didn't really buy that. Holly didn't either. There was something wrong about this whole case. She knew, that she had seen something like that before, in the back of her head, she knew what was going on. But for the life of her, she could not remember what it was.

"Well, do you have anything at all?", the detective asked impatiently, dropping the journal back on the table.

"The victim was a man, in his late 30s to early 40s. No trauma to the bones, which means that whatever way he died, it must have been either a disease of some sort or a flesh wound. But, this is where it gets a bit complicated."

Holly chewed on her lip. This was crazy. This was Hollywood horror movie crazy, but she had to make sense of this.

"What do you mean?", Peck actually came closer to the table now, a notepad in hand, scribbling down all the details Holly had just spilled.

"This is not a result of decay. There are no signs of decay whatsoever. These bones. Well...They were sort of intended to be bones, if that makes sense. And whoever did this, did a really nice job."

"A really nice job? That's how you're gonna word this?", Peck looked at her, with that one-sided half smile-half scowl. "Should I, maybe, consider you a suspect?

"No, I'm just saying. Well. Exactly what I was saying. They are bones cause they were meant to be bones."

"Ahhh...Like..A trophy or something?"

"Not really. Look. Let's just say when a body decays, to the point when there are only bones left, well, there are all kinds of stuff on those bones. None of that is here. But there are other ways to make body into a set of bones. Like, medical schools have their ways to do that. There are certain bleaching procedures, boiling procedures, using ammonia and other chemical substances. But this is not it. The chemical compounds that I seem to be finding in the crevices of the bone structures don't mach those, that I should find. Besides the bone tissue itself doesn't look like it's been processed this way. All the bones used for exhibitions in museums and such, are treated in similar ways."

The detective was watching Holly intently, her brow getting more and more furrowed. Holly was worried that by the end of her speech, Pecks whole forehead would implode.

"So. The next thing I though, was that the tissues were removed mechanically. You know, with a scalpel or something similar. But there are no signs of forced removal. Even at the places where the tendons attach themselves to the bone. The bones are clean and undamaged. Since the insides of all the long bones are congealed I went back to the boiling idea. And now, come here and look."

Holly really wanted to explain everything step by step. She needed to do that, because if she only spat out the end result of her inner deliberation, the detective would simply think she had gone crazy.

"Look, how the skull is all clean and undamaged. Look how all the teeth are perfect. Not a single crack."

"So?"

"Sooo...Do you like to cook, detective?"

"Well, yes, of course I do. I also like long walks on the beach and I listen to fucking Enya. What the hell?"

Holly ignored the frustrated detective.

"There is this thing called aspic. It's made of all kinds of ingredients that are set in jelly. The jelly is made of a meat stock, prepared in a certain way. In a way that allows for the stock to set without adding any sort of extra gelatin to it. This happens because the natural gelatin is boiled out of the meat and the bones."

Holly stopped there, because she could see that Peck got where this was going.

"No way in hell. Come on, doctor. You're telling me someone made jello out of this guy?"

"The bones show signs of being boiled at a set temperature for certain amount of time, no cooling and reheating again, no messing about. The flesh was cooked long enough to be taken of the bone easily, but not enough to damage the bone itself.", Holly pause, before bringing her case home, "I also found particles of spices in the fissures of the bones."

The lab was utterly silent for a moment.

"Spices?"

"Yes. Spices. Some bay leaf, some pepper, some rosemary, some other stuff."

Holly watched the detectives face. Her eyer narrowing and settling on the bones displayed on the autopsy table.

"You are telling me, that you actually think, that this guy was..eaten?"

"I can't tell you if he was eaten. But I'm pretty much convinced that he was made into a dish. And the bones, they simply were discarded as useless. Or something like that."

Yes. That was the thought at the back of her head. She had seen this. Back when she was a kid and her grandmother used to make her have all kinds of weird food adventures. Holly had seen pig's bones look exactly the same after undergoing one of the old ladies experiments in the kitchen. It tasted ok, but Holly was far more interested in the bones that were left over and, to her grandmother's horror, actually tried to rebuild the carcass of the pig's head.

"Well, you seem to be way too chipper about this."

"Detective, this seems to be a case of cannibalism. CANNIBALISM. Do you even imagine, how rare that is? I don't think any of my colleagues have ever seen anything like this", Holly could hardly contain her giddiness, "in this sort of situation, I'm not going waste my time worrying about looking weird."

"Like that ship hasn't sailed already.", the detective was silent of r a moment, head bent, eyes cast to the floor, she exhaled slowly. It seemed like her whole body became smaller for a moment, "Let's not throw around the C word for the time being. Ok? It stays between you and me, until you type out an actual official report. I don't need to freak anybody out and start a witch hunt. Let's just say, that you have evidence that the body was ...processed in certain ways with specific intentions. Yes. That. We're gonna say that for now."

Peck was still looking at the ground. Holly got it. While this kind of a case for her was basically like walking into an all you can eat candy shop for a kid, it was a nightmare for the leading detective. Peck would not only need to solve the case itself, but manage the press and contain the reaction of the public. Yes, the resignation in the detectives voice definitely had reason.

"Can you do anything about identifying the victim? Because, as exciting as your news are, they are not as helpful as I'd like them to be."

"Yes, I'm running some test. Amplifying DNR from a few pieces of the bone. It's gonna take a while though. You might want to send Puppy Face back here for the wait," Holly said turning back to all of her buzzing equipment. She sincerely hoped, that she would be able to get some usable results. This case was going to blow everybody's mind out. It need to be solve as smoothly as possible.

"Puppy Face? You mean officer Diaz?"

Holly could hear the smile in Peck's words.

"Yeah, sorry. I keep forgetting his name, no matter how many times he hangs around here. But he does remind me of a puppy. I'm sure if he had a tail, he'd wag it every time he called me "mam", even though it makes me feel at least 20 years older than I really am."

Both women were silent for a moment. Peck cast her eyes to the floor again.

"I sort of dated him for a while", she said and covered her eyes with her hand.

Of course she did.

"Well. I certainly wouldn't have guessed that you two would, you know...", Holly was trying hard to remain within polite limits and not to laugh at the detectives expression, "I mean, he seems to have survived it in one piece. Why would someone like you want to..."

"Hey! Someone like me? What is that supposed to mean?", Peck raised her chin and squared her shoulders.

"Exactly, detective", Holly just smiled.

They stared at one another for what seemed like an eternity. At least to Holly it did.

"Gail. Call me Gail."

"In then case, I'm Holly."

"Well, Holly, haven't you heard all that stuff about opposites attracting and all?"

"I have, yes, but I sort of have a sneaking suspicion that he does like long walks on the beach and Enya. Which, well...I don't know, maybe it is you cup of tea, you know, the whole supper nice guy thing."

Gail was sitting in Holly's chair now, twirling around like a kid and shaking her head in a silent "no".

"Not your thing, either, I suspect?," she half stated, half asked.

"I used to think so", Holly treaded carefully.

"But?"

"It turned out I just don't like men", Holly surprised herself. This weird bonding thing with Gail was happening faster that she had anticipated.

"I don't like men either."

Shit.

"I mean, I'm a lesbian".

"Oh, I mean, I don't like people".

"Yeaaaah, I can totally see you and Puppy Face having a bright future together."

Gail looked at Holly. There it was. That sneaky little glint in the detectives eyes.

"Look. It just happened. Sort of out of nowhere. I didn't even realize it was happening until we were in an actual relationship. And then it ended just as abruptly as it had begun. But he is more than fine now. Brings a new girlfriend home every weekend."

"For one, a new woman every weekend hardly seems fine to me. And two- how the hell do you know that?"

Gail rolled her eyes, " we live together. Roommates ".

"Are you serious?"

"Holly, I told you, we were friends before that, and it all happened rather fast. I'm good at that. The fast stuff. You see, I'm sort of like a cat. I'm good at climbing trees, but once I'm in that tree, I don't really know what to do, I just want to get out. And so I create an emergency situation to get out of it."

"Of the tree?"

"Of relationships."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Oh. And in this case, the emergency situation presented itself to me. A mutual friend of ours kissed me, and it all went downhill from there."

Gail was silent, but Holly could see that the story wasn't over yet, she could see how one corner of Gail's mouth was rising up in a tentative smile. "That mutual friend who kissed me? He's sort of another roommate living with us now."

Holly could not hold the grin anymore. She could feel the laughter coming too.

"Are you serious? What the hell? Why are you still living with them?"

"The detective title and job only happened 8 months ago, and I've been really busy detecting and stuff. I'll move out once I have the time", Gail was using one of her stern voices, but Holly could see the smile in her eyes.

Holly was giggling. She was actually giggling and she could hardly remember the last time she giggled, in her lab even more so.

"Oh man. I don't even know what's more exciting, the cannibalism, or THIS," she said while pointing in Gail's direction.

"What, not enough life of your own so you have to have fun at the expense of others?"

"Gail, I don't think I even know anyone with as much "life" as you just described."

One of the machines running tests started beeping. Holly turned to it and heard Gail stand up as well. The detective walked up behind Holly saying, "Tell you what, if you give me an ID now, I'll get you chinese take out, and tell you all about my Puppy Face endeavors".

Holly stood still looking at the two sheets of paper.

"What?", Gail could not make out the frozen expression on the pathologists face.

"Holly WHAT".

"There are two victims."

"...there are two...what?"

"Two sets of DNR. Two distinct samples of DNR. This skeleton is made out of bones from two different people. I will run both of those DNR sequences through the data base, it's gonna take some time to know if we have actual IDs, but the point remains, there are two people."

Gail was standing and staring at her with wide eyes, eyebrows frozen mid- forehead.

"Didn't you notice? I mean, were the bones so well matched or something?"

"The victims were probably the same hight, same weight, same race."

"Jesus...I need to call people at the station, let them know.", Gail said, while getting her phone from her pocked and starting to dial.

"And, also, I think it's time you went out to do some of that detecting of yours, cause we're quite literally missing pieces here. A whole body worth of pieces."

"Wonderful, just fucking wonderful.", Gail muttered on her way out, phone already at her ear.

Holly looked at the clock. She didn't even realize until then, that the detective had spent almost three and a half hours in her lab. And now, after she left, the lab seemed somewhat too silent and too still. However, it didn't take long for her brain to pick up the speed once again. This mystery, this case was going to be big. It was going to be the most exciting thing even before the second victim came into focus. Her feeling at the forest had been right, after all. The crime that those poor joggers had accidentally stumbled upon was going to be thoroughly messed up. Holly sighed. But not a sad sigh. A determined sigh. She didn't spend all those years in medical school just to run the same standard tests all the time. All of her professors, at least the ones who truly loved their job, told her that every now and then there would be a case. A case that would challenge her both on a personal and professional level. A case that would force her to change the way how she saw her work. The kind of case that makes all of those other identical cases with standard tests worth it.

Stephen was going to be livid. But she might actually need some of his help. Not yet though. Not immediately. Because Holly knew. There, in the artificial light of her lab and a sad dreary darkness of the night overtaking the world outside the forensics department, she knew, that the all they had, at that point, was just the beginning.


	2. Two: Amouse-bouche

_Thump thump. In. Thump Thump. Out. Thump thump. In. Thump Thump. Out._

Holly hated jogging without her ipod. She hated listening to her own feet hitting the ground and air leaving her lungs. Usually, with music blaring in her ears she was blissfully unaware of the rhythm of her breathing. Increasingly labored breathing, she added in her mind. The sound her feet hitting the pavement echoed loudly in the still darkness of the night. The streets of Toronto were surprisingly quiet and empty at 3.30 a.m. Of course, normal people were home, sleeping in their warm beds, comfortably cocooned in their repetitive daily patterns.

Holly, though, was jogging. Or was it running? Holly knew there was a difference. It was in the speed. She could not remember at what speed the term changed, no matter how many times she googled. The point still remained. She was jogging/running at 3.30 a.m. in semi-deserted Toronto with both her breathing and the rain becoming more and more heavy. Holly knew, she would be drenched by the time she actually reached her house and could almost hear her mother sigh at the thought of her all wet running outside in these temperatures. Really, though, she liked running when it was raining. It made her feel more alive somehow. It also covered up just about how much sweat a slightly longer or faster run ended up causing her.

_Thump thump. In. Thump thump. Out. Thump thump. In. Thump thump. Out._

God, was her apartment building further than where it was when she left for the jog? She could swear she had gotten out of shape by missing barely a couple of work-outs. It has been happening more and more often, to Holly's dismay. Stephen has been steadily decreasing his workload, his retirement looming in not such a distant future. Which in turn meant Holly taking on more and more cases. She was also helping him, no, it would be more accurate to say that she was working along side him on his research too. And, according to every single person in the lab, a public secret of sorts, was that Holly would be asked to step in as the head of the department once Stephen actually retired. This whole situation put a target on her back in the lab, considering how many of her colleagues were older and better than her at the politics angle of the job. But Holly was good, no she was the best when it came to the job itself. She was innovative. She thrived on new technology. In her hands, the lab would flourish. And, admittedly, she was the idiot who sacrificed her personal life without a second thought in the face of an interesting case. What had Monica told her? That it would take a woman willing to live in Holly's lab to make a relationship with the pathologist work? And then they broke up, because Monica, as it turned out, had no inclination of moving to the lab.

Three years. That was three years ago, when her last serious relationship ended. No wonder Stephen was considering making her the head of the department. She lived and breathed her job. The only women she met now were the ones her viciously persistent friends kept on setting her up with. It might have ended in a couple of one night stands, but rarely went beyond the first date. Or the first night. The frightening part of this situation was that Holly didn't really seem to mind. As she constantly reminded her sister, she was busy. Career and science and all...

Holly felt sweat trickle down between her breasts and she climbed the stairs to her apartment. She had been meaning to look for a house. She had been meaning to do that for almost a year. She had the money. She knew she'd like the extra space and privacy that a house would guarantee. But, just as her love life, all of the other aspects of her life had been in some sort of a limbo. With the exception of her career, everything that was Holly Steward was suspended in time and space. Not moving forward, not moving back. She was just there.

Holly shook her head, walking from the shower to the kitchen wearing only a towel wrapped around her still slightly wet just-out-of-shower body. Jogging usually cleared up these thoughts. About her life choices and such. Holly blamed the damn ipod. With music blaring in her ears, she was able to lose herself in the run. In the silence, however, she thought. And thinking wasn't always such a welcome activity. Not when she was off call, when there was no mystery to solve. God, the ipod and the horniness. Ovulating? Probably. Holly added up the days while getting dressed for work. Yeah, ovulating, no surprise she was feeling that extra little bit more frustrated. Every month, on a fixed schedule, horniness hit her with the power and stealth of a lion. Out of nowhere. Her roommate during med school years, Lisa, used to make fun of her. It was a running joke with her, that the only time when the forever studious Holly agreed to go out was when her ovaries were calling her.

* * *

It was a ridiculous five o'clock in the morning as Holly drove to her job, trying to end the annoying train of thought that her brain seemed so eager to continue on. However, it all halted. There was a human shape at the top of the stairs leading to the forensics building. The shape had a offensively blond hair, blaring in the darkness of an early dawn.

"Detective Peck?"

"Doctor Stewart?"

They both stared at each other for a moment. The silence fluttering in the air between them. Had they agreed to meet and she forgot? Or were the new developments in the case?

"What are you doing here at 5 am?

Gail lifted her hand up, holding a few bags that had familiar logos to Holly.

"You are here at 5 am too, so. You don't really get to question me regarding that", Gail said standing up.

"You brought me chinese take out?"

Holly could not stop a corner of her mouth rising in tentative smile.

"Well, I promised you some yesterday, didn't I? I don't break promises. At least not easily", the detective explained brushing dirt of off her pants.

"Why are you on the stairs? You could have waited inside, you know."

Gail looked at the ground not saying anything.

"Oh my god! Did you piss of the security guard?", Holly could not stop her amazement as Gail kept looking at the ground in quiet affirmation, "Tom is such a sweet guy. I can't even imagine how it would be possible to make him angry enough to not let you in the building in this kind of weather".

"Well, obviously, he has his weak spots. Sweet guy my ass," Gail mumbled as they both walked towards Holly's office. Once they squeezed themselves inside, Gail said, "Wow. I though that my teeny tiny detective desk at the station was sad, but this. THIS. Your office could easily be called offensive you know. Aren't you like one of the smartest nerds here?"

Holly caught that. Did detective Peck ask around? She also knew that her office was ridiculously small. The table barely fit inside and with Gail next to her there was hardly any breathing space left. Stephen used to joke that her office was quite fitting for a pathologist, because of it's similarity to the morgue drawers for the corpses. For a while Holly laughed at that joke. But eventually it started to become less and less funny. Especially when there wasn't enough space even for her books and journals, let alone any other personal objects she might have considered keeping there. Holly spent as little time in that office as possible.

"I know, I know. But I'm almost never here. I'm either in the lab or in the field. Or something. It's more of a technicality. And just some personal space."

"Some, being the key word,"

Holly smiled. Did she even have to try? Or was this kind of communication so unconsciously natural to Gail that it came with no effort whatsoever?

"We can eat in the break room. It's gonna be empty this early in the morning anyway."

They both left their jackets in Holly's office and took the food to the room that all of the lab staff shared for rewinding. Holly had to admit. Gail really fit into the 15th division detective gang. They were all attractive, as in straight-off-the- magazine-cover attractive, they all seemed to be smart and witty. But there was something more to this one. Gail Peck. And her tight strict ponytail, and that leather jacket and that subtle hint of perfume, and..

"Want some of this?", Gail said pointing at one of the boxes with food.

Holly was jarred from her ministrations. They shared the chinese take out, which was, as it turned out, not the worst idea on a really early rainy morning.

"So. Gail. Why are you here? Yesterday, when I left this place, I left the DNR samples running through the data bases and instructed the night shift forensics people to inform you if there was a hit. I got a text a couple of hours ago from them, I was out jogging so I didn't notice it immediately hence I couldn't call you myself, but they must have informed you about the ID of one of the victims. Aren't you supposed to be out there, following the lead or whatever you call it", Holly waved her hand around. She really had no clue about the police aspects of the job. She never really went into trouble to find all of that out. Not the most interesting part of the crime solving, in her opinion.

"Yeah, I know. Some guy called me around 4 am. And we are "following the lead", as you put it so sooooo professionally. Well, detective Peck is following it, anyway."

Holly stared at Gail, confusion written all over the doctors face.

"What?"

"Detective Steve Peck? He's on this case now too. I told you, I've only been a detective for roughly 8 months. And Steve has been in homicide for awhile now. Sergeant Best wasn't going to give THIS kind of a case to me to solve it on my own. So. Now Steve is the lead detective, and I'm sort of tagging along."

"Steve Peck. Any relation?"

"Brother. Wait. You were out JOGGING when the text came? At 3 am?"

Holly nodded her head. She knew it would not get past Gail, who was now staring at her with a disgusted look on her face.

"Coming into work at 5 am is bad enough, but fine, I could justify that with severe dedication to your job. But what the hell? Who jogs at 3 am? No, wait, who jogs period?"

Gail wasn't the only one who reacted like that. All of her friends and all of the past girlfriends found Holly odd. Her parents found her sleeping habits odd enough to show her to numerous doctors when she was growing up.

"I'm just a bad sleeper. Sometimes I have trouble falling asleep, and when that happens I don't just lie there in bed. Instead, I get up and do stuff that I don't find time for during the day."

Gail looked at her, skeptical.

"But you're a doctor, right? You know that there are pills for that?"

"I've tried that, but I don't like the pill-induced sleep. It's different, besides, I'm always in a shitty mood the following day. My brain seems to sort of glaze up. And besides, it's not really a big problem. I stay up for a night or two and after that, exhaustion kicks in and I just pass out and sleep completely fine."

"Yeah. That's not weird at all."

Holly just shook her head and laughed. What else could she have done? It was becoming increasingly obvious that there was no reasoning with the detective once she had made up her mind. Holly, with her evidence-based approach in most situations in life, usually found these kind of people infuriating. The ones who shielded themselves with their opinions and could not be swayed even with most constructive and reasoned arguments. Ignorant. Holly could not stand ignorant people. But Gail wasn't ignorant. She wasn't even childish. She was acting childish, hell knows why. But it was part of the who "look-at-me-but-not-really" package. Which made Holly all kinds of intrigued.

They ate in a comfortable silence, passing each other food and sharing take-out boxes. Other lab employes started coming in, greeting Holly in passing. Gail didn't say a word. For someone as sassy as she was, the detective seemed surprisingly willing to stay silent. Only a day earlier, when Holly first saw Detective Peck in the forrest, demanding to leave the crime scene, she would have never believed her to be this person sitting in front of her, loudly slurping noodles and seemingly contemplating something, deeply in thought.

"I like your lab. Definitely. I could live here."

That was all Gail said. No explanation or anything.

"Because?"

"It's so calm a quite here. In the precinct there is always some sort of commotion. Some thing is happening, someone is shouting and, oh man, there is Chloe."

Holly scrunched up her eyebrows.

"Who's Chloe?"

Gail's phone buzzed as she was about to answer. She apologized and held up her finger in a sorry-just-a-moment manner, which somehow didn't fit the rest of her manners at all. After only a few seconds of murmured yeses and mhms, she hung up and looked at Holly with her lips pressed tightly together.

"I'm afraid I'm gonna have to tell you all about Chloe another time. We have to go. They found some missing peaces in the identified victim's place."

* * *

Barely 20 minutes later, Holly was standing in an alley next to an old graffiti- covered apartment building. Holly could see lairs made of cardboard and newspapers in ever nook of the building. None of the residents willing to claim their improvised homes were in proximity. They usually scatter fast once the police is involved. The red and blue lights of the police cars, however, seemed to bring in a crowd of curios passersby. Even at this early hour, people were already hanging around, whispering among themselves. but Holly knew, in this part of town, once the police started asking questions, all of those people would shut up and claim ignorance. The mood was collectively gloom. Rain was still pouring, the harsh reality of the other side of Toronto staring uncompromisingly at all of the cops and their shiny new cars.

Holly walked over to the entrance where one of the officers from 15th waved her over. Once inside the stairwell, the smell hit Holly. The smell that she was looking for in the forrest. At first it was faint, but got stronger with every floor Holly climbed. She could see the conspicuous eyes in gaps of slightly open doors. She knew, they knew. But nobody was going to ask them why nobody called this in. Nobody is going to ask why nobody bother to do something about the smell of rotting flesh taking over a whole building. Because the answer would be simple. I don't know. Nobody wants trouble. So all of those eyes, they were watching Holly now, waiting to find out, through the grapevine, who it was. Because at that point there was no doubt in anybodies mind. It was a "who", not a "what".

Holly stopped at the ajar door, number 36 slightly rusted on it. A couple of officers were at the door and Holly could see Gail and detective Steve Peck standing on the inside, but not moving around. _Good_. They at least had the decency and common sense to wait for her. At a second glance she realized that she had actually worked with Gail's brother on a case or two in the past. She must have forgotten his name, but his face was somewhere at the back of her head. Holly looked down. The stench was atrocious as Holly bent down to put on all the necessary forensic protection gear. The smell was filling up her nose without mercy.

The smell of rotting human flesh is unique. At least for live human beings. It is a reflex to perceive it as different, a primitive instinct left over from the time that humans were not quite yet humans. It is believed that the instinct to flee upon smelling the rotten flesh of your own species was passed on to human from reptiles. You smell the death of one of your own, you run, or in some cases vomit, for your life. So to speak. The receptors that allow to react this way lay deep inside the nose. Close to those that are responsible for the whole pheromone thing. It all made sense, in Holly's opinion. She never felt any of the survival stuff kicking in when in proximity with a dead human being. So. Maybe her pheromone-related instincts were a bit off as well. It would certainly explain why absolutely all of her friends were so much more...pheromonal. There. A logical explanation for all of her strangeness at once. Defected nose, that's all that is was.

"Sorry. No body again," Gail shook Holly out of her thought.

No. No body indeed. In the corner of the trashy run down kitchen on the counter, like a cherry on top of a cake, sat the innards of a human being.

* * *

Nobody said a word. Holly looked around the room. On first inspection it looked like that was the only piece of biological evidence in the perimeter. From a first glance she could tell that the organs have been there for at least 48 but less than 72 hours. But she wasn't sure. Of course, she wouldn't be sure, until she got them back to her lab. This type of decomposition was challenging to say the least. Not many opportunities to work on human organs that have been removes from the human body and left to rot in a in-house environment. Too specific. Holly had studied all kinds of situations in various seminars all around Canada and USA, even Asia. But studying those types of scenarios and working actual cases with a variety of contributing elements, well, it was going to be a mind and skill work-out for Holly. Definitely.

The large and small intestine seemed intact but disconnected from the stomach. Usually when the corpse is left to rot, the intestines burst due to the pressure that gasses produced by bacteria create. These intestines didn't burst. So, whoever removed them, did it right after killing the owner of the organs. Stomach still connected to the esophagus, the soft tissues of which where showing serious signs of decomposition. Well, considering that the organs lay in a puddle of brownish fluid which was dripping onto the floor, there were serious signs of decomposition in general.

Holly kept looking at the organs without saying anything, without touching anything yet. There was a silent cough behind her back. A male cough.

"So. Anything?"

Detective Steve Peck.

"Well. I can tell you that the organs came from one human. But in order to "definitely" tell you that, I will need to run tests in the lab. I can tell you that the organs have been here longer then the bones were on the forest ground. Again, I will need to verify that in the lab. What I can tell you with a hundred percent conviction is that, once again, we are missing some stuff."

"Oh, come on. Seriously?", Gail whined while Detective Peck just looked at her with eyebrows drawn together.

"Well," Holly cleared her throat," there is no liver, only one lung, no omentum, no kidneys. But the testicles are here, and they have been removed from the sac so, whoever did this, did a pretty thorough job."

"A thorough job," Steve repeated, "I'll assume that the possibility of this being a spur-of- the- moment passion crime is out the window?"

"Definitely. Your killer took their time. Very thorough.", Holly hesitated for a moment.

Gail saw it. There was a question looming in her eyes.

"I'm not trying to imply anything here. But you know. All the parts that are missing? They are sort of edible."

Both Pecks looked at the ground.

"Yeah. I was thinking about it, but hoping that it was just too many cooking shows doing their thing to my head," Steve said with a small humorless smile.

They were once again silent as Holly finished taking pictures and started packing up the organs. Ok. She might have been a bit wrong about the timeframe. The trachea literally fell apart in her hands. Luckily it fell apart into the evidence bag and not the floor. Nevertheless she heard a muffled sigh-like sound from one of the detectives. By the time she had finished packing up and gathering as much of the fluid from the counter as she could, the rest of the forensics team was sweeping the entire apartment for any other kind of evidence.

As she was about to leave the crime scene Holly saw in her peripheral vision something moving. It was Gail, waving and pointing at some officer, who looked slightly hyperactive, bouncing on the soles of her feet, eyes wide, hands moving around, whispering to another officer. Holly looked back at Gail, who simply mouther "CHLOE".

* * *

They worked in silence. She could hardly notice that someone was even next to her in the lab. That's why actually didn't mind sharing a table with Stephen, something not every pathologist agreed to. She called her boss the moment she felt the spleen about to burst in her hands with the mush dark brown green pulp that was inside of it. Holly was definitely going to need the help.

"So. Janet has been bugging me for a while now."

The wonderful forever adventurous Janet. If not for his wive's active life style, Holly was sure, Stephen would have become a hermit many years ago. She watched his slim fingers slowly delicately untangling the small intestine, avoiding the brown-black blotches where the tissues were already completely rotten.

"About what?"

"About that trip around USA we have been planning for a while now. I promised her we'd do it once I retired."

"Really? You are considering retirement because your wife wants to travel?", Holly smiled. "Where is that Stephen that used to spend 30 hours in front of a corpse and then fight to get the new case without even taking a nap?"

Stephen snickered in the way that only he knew how.

"That Stephen was a young idiot. This one," he pointed at himself with gloves covered in goo, " this one is old and wise. You should definitely listen to this Stephen."

Holly heard that note in his voice. He was being serious now. No games and no messing about. But he continued trying to make sense on the intestines without ruining them.

"Are you going to add me to the papers on this case?"

That was not the direction Holly was expecting.

"Yes. Of course. You're helping me, so your'e going to be on the papers. Why?"

She felt an uneasy heaviness at the pit of her stomach.

"Janet has really been bugging me. You know. But it's not bugging really. She means well. And I'm not considering retirement, Holly. I already filled up all the necessary paperwork with the people higher up. This is my last week. And I this will be my last case. You know. I will go out with a bang."

Holly was silent. Her hands had stopped moving somewhere along his speech, and she could not believe what she was hearing. Stephen. The coolest person in the lab was going to retire. It was going to change things. On so many levels that Holly was scared to even start thinking about it. And yet, here he was, going on, elbow deep in intestines.

"There is no secret that you are going to be the new head of department," as Holly shook her head, Stephen raised one of his eyebrows," no stop it. We both know, everybody knows that I was planning on you to take my place. I groomed you for a long time and the time has come. I'm not supposed to tell you this just like that, but next Monday all the higher-ups are going to vote, and you will get my position. It's a guarantee. They're not idiots. Well, not complete idiots."

Holly was still standing there, feeling how the ground was slowly shifting beneath her feet.

"You need to know that you are ready for this. We both know you are. And you will have an awesome team. You know that our guys are some of the best in the country. And from next monday on they will be YOUR guys. The pay-rise too."

Holly shook her head.

"Yeah, the pay-rise. I was thinking more about the paperwork-rise. Stephen. This is just...Ohh man."

Holly had no words. She knew that this was going to happen eventually, but now, in the face of this case, so suddenly.

"I really need you not to get nervous. You are ready. You are good. Because when you get nervous you babble and it's all a mess. So. Do. Not. Get. Nervous."

Holly laughed. She still remember her word diarrhea when she was fresh after her residency and came for the job interview in this lab. She was convinced that Stephen thought her to be a complete nut case with the show that she put up, until he called her a week after the interview telling her that she got the job.

"I won't. Well. I'll try not to. I can't promise anything."

"You HAVE to promise me something, Holly. You do. You are a wonderful forensic pathologist and I know that you will be great at this job, at this new position. But I need to know that this lab will not become your life. I need you to promise me that you will try, at least try to live. You know? I don't know. Get out, do something, find someone."

Holly was looking at the table, biting on her lower lip.

"Do you know why I was able to look at a corpse for 30 hours and fight for a new case without even a nap? Because I knew that after all of that stuff I'd get home and Janet would be there. She was a doctor, so her being there didn't mean a fancy dinner or a clean house. Sometimes it only meant some rushed sex in the shower and half toasted piece of bread with cold coffee. But she was there, Holly. She made me grow as a human being. She was, and still is, my sanity."

They were both silent for a moment, looking at each other over a pile of rotting human organs.

"I need you to promise me that you will grow too."

Holly was never an overly emotional person, but she had to swallow the lump in her throat a few time before she could answer.

"Yes. I ahh...I will, Stephen. I promise I'll try."

That was then end of the conversation, as if nothing had transpired between them, Stephen continued to talk about the best kind of a car he was looking for Janet's and his trip. On some level, Holly was glad. She really did not want to cry all over evidence.

They worked side by side for the remaining of the day. Only stopping to eat during lunch. Officers were stopping by, inquiring about the evidence every hour or so. The Puppy face stopped by. Chloe did too. They, apparently, at this point were looking into every single person they could link to the victim that was identified. The other one, the one who's internal organs where still out there somewhere, remained a complete mystery.

Holly was leaving the lab and could not shake the thoughts about the bodies, about the organs, about the absurdity of it all when her phone buzzed.

"_Hey, Lunchbox. You busy tonight? I really really need a plus one for a couple of hours. My boss getting married. Free booze. There will be free booze. You in?"_

The message was signed "_The Badass-est detective in Toronto._"

Holly smiled and dialed the senders number. She was going to need details if she was going to do the whole growing thing.

* * *

Thank you. All of you for the comments and for following and stuff. Aaaand somebody out there promised pizza ;) Bring it on :)


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